


Hunters

by irisbleufic



Category: American Gods (TV), American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-01
Updated: 2005-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:29:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bast goes fishing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunters

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Apathy in the Yuletide New Year Resolutions Challenge 2005.

The spring days are quiet, each one stretched into an endless, inevitable sunset. The river rushes have always been a fine place for hunting, but there's a solace in them now that is new and golden-colored. Bast sits on the waterlogged husk of a long-dead oak, patiently washing her paws. Today, the sun is bright and harsh on the water, and it's impossible to tell this glint or that glimmer from the quick twist of a fish.  
  
Unfortunately, even cats' eyes are not perfect.  
  
_Lick, lick, twitch_. Bast watches a feather drift on the current, making a lazy attempt to snag it before it ripples on its way. The Truth is a hard thing to tell, but the most silent of her sisters is vigilant and ever-present. Between the patches of sun sway the shadows of leaves, restless and tethered. Alone, she can admit that she was sad to see him go.  
  
Unexpectedly, her brothers have been patient. Anubis now prefers his work to chasing her down alleys, and Thoth's incessant writing, even when he brings his ledger to the riverbank, couldn't be _less_ intrusive. Horus, well-there'd been no change.  
  
Most nights, she spends inside: her brothers need help with the beer-brewing, which they've never admitted, and if not for her poking into every corner, the rooms would fill with dust. The cobwebs make her sneeze, which is somehow less pleasant in her four-legged form. It's much easier to reach the ceilings with a stepladder and her bare, brown hands. She scrubs them in the bathroom sink afterward, squinting at her long nails under the fluorescent light. She misses candles, and air fresheners are a poor substitute for incense.  
  
In the water, something swift and dark darts into her peripheral vision. It's a small catfish, hardly out of the egg, and it thrashes helplessly, pinned to the bark-splintered side of her perch. The young ones are the easiest to catch, and the most tender, too.  
  
One evening, Anubis brought home sushi from a Japanese restaurant. He told her she'd have to shape up and sit at the table if she wanted any, so, sulkily, she had complied. The chopsticks had been the wooden kind, hard to snap apart without breaking one. She'd kept her mouth shut about the river fish being fresher. Anubis had been proud of his find, and about how far he'd had to drive for it. She suspected that Thoth hadn't been impressed, either, though he'd always been good at lying. To Anubis, anyway.  
  
Later that night, she'd brushed out her hair in front of the mirror in Shadow's deserted guest room. She'd lit candles afterward, one by one, and spent the night wrapped in cold sheets that smelled of mothballs and disuse. The incense she'd picked up at the corner knick-knacks store didn't help, and the air had smelled of ash in the morning.  
  
Bast closes her eyes, shutting out the sun. She hasn't dreamed in weeks.  
  
She hadn't been on the battlefield. She remembers stalking through the long grass-sometimes leaping, sometimes racing-her eyes fixed on a soaring shape overhead. She'd taken one look at the tree and ducked into the underbrush, _remembering_. He'd gone too far to come back, she thought. She should know. She'd taken him.  
  
Even through her eyelids, the light is glaring. She sinks her claws deeper, feels the fish die.  
  
Bast is accustomed to death. She is accustomed to prayers for the departed; she is accustomed to the small, shadowy shapes that slink through her peripheral vision like some eternal, waking dream. She is accustomed to knowing their names.  
  
What she is _not_ accustomed to is carrying one.  
  
She crushes the head of the catfish in her jaws, eye-jelly taste and soft, bony skull stuck in her teeth. She rips the thing away and drops it in the water, watching it bob for a moment before sinking. The belly is the best part, warm and easy to open.  
  
Their work is not so different, she thinks. Gods give, gods take away-or they patch up what's left when humans have had their way with one another. She thinks of Anubis in his basement and, for a fleeting moment, feels pity. The sun cannot reach him there, however much it hurts. She'd bring him her leftovers, but he has enough of his own.  
  
Bast finds it hard not to think of her other body, of the way she'll feel empty when evening comes again. When Thoth asked her, gently, if she'd been feeling all right lately, she'd just shrugged and picked up an ancient Reader's Digest from the basket beside the sofa. Night hunting wasn't what it used to be, she'd said. Not exciting enough.  
  
The Truth, which she couldn't speak, was that she was sick of the neighborhood toms.  
  
Eventually, Anubis got rid of the cat basket. Just taking up space, he'd said; if she didn't like sleeping in the kitchen anymore, then she could damned well learn to like cooking in it. She'd given him a good rake across the cheek for that, and found her fingernails bloody afterward. Thoth had put an arm around her and led her upstairs to her room, which was beginning to smell something like patchouli. He read her a bedtime story.  
  
Bast lets the mangled fish roll off the log. She's lost her appetite, so she returns to cleaning her paws, finding them much more in need than before. Fish blood is more satisfying than human blood. God blood, on the other hand, tastes like revenge.  
  
Soon, the sun will begin to set. She stretches, padding to shore in one long stretch, her bare feet sinking into the mud with the force of transformation and impact. Shading her eyes with one faintly sticky hand, she stares into the low-lying brightness.  
  
The silhouette of a bird drifts into focus, dark against the golden glare.  
  
With one hand extended, Bast calls to the shape softly. It answers with a high, mournful cry, wings beating madly as it approaches. It dives at the rushes, screeching, and emerges with something small in its beak. The creature, whatever it was, is gone in one swallow.  
  
"We've missed you, brother," she says, impatiently waving her hand.  
  
Horus lands with a flap and a whistle, and then preens himself.  
  
His talons are smooth and fierce on her fingers, but careful, ever careful, not to cut her flesh.  
  
"I've just had lunch," Bast continues, stroking the bird's sleek head with her free hand. "So have you, it looks like."  
  
Horus whistles again, bobbing his head in agreement.  
  
"It can't have been enough," Bast protests. "Mice don't live that high in the stalks."  
  
Horus tilts his head, beak half open, panting comically. There's something black and thread-thin stuck to his chin.

Bast picks it away with disgust, flicking it to the ground, and then notices a flash that is far too delicate to be the sun, or even a fish.  
  
"You only come home when there's trouble," she says, and feels Ma'at draw near.  
  
Horus crows plaintively, turning his head upside-down.  
  
In the reeds dangles a feather, caught neatly in a spider's shining web.


End file.
